feminism

We’ve all heard it before, amirite, ladies? We mention an instance of street harassment in conversation, and some ‘helpful’ chap chimes in with “maybe he was just saying hello”, because clearly our experience is worth less than the hypothetical musings of some random man. So I will start this post with an example of what is not “just saying hello”, which happened to me earlier this week, and then I will finish with an example of what is “just saying hello”, with the aim of clearing up any confusion.

NOT “Just Saying Hello”

This is just one example of many that I could have provided, like the times I’ve been grabbed in the street, yelled at out of cars and from the other side of the road, wolf-whistled and spat at, and told to smile by someone who has no right to my time or attention. But this is the most recent, and perhaps the most entertaining. So here we go, lads, this is how to not just say hello to a lady you’ve spotted minding her own business:

Walking home from a friend’s, and on my way to the little Tesco’s, I passed two blokes out for the night. One of them clearly had had enough (of drink, of the night, possibly of his over-exuberant friend) and wanted to go home, but the other was totally plastered and wanted to stay out. They were discussing the merits of heading to the Northern Quarter, and as I passed the latter engaged me in the banter as to why they should party the night away. I’m well aware that getting drawn into these situations can be A Bad Idea, but on that night my faith in humanity was at a high, and it seemed fun and harmless, so I obliged. Besides, the sober-ish friend seemed to have his head screwed on right, so I felt safe.

The pissed-up friend was trying to convince his mate that there would be a naked street party on offer, and it was pretty funny – you really had to be there though – I jpkingly said it sounded great and I’d like to go along too. His friend, however, was having none of it, and made his excuses and went home after we had walked a couple of blocks down. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, and parted ways. What a nice gentleman he was.

His friend decided to continue to walk with me up to the Northern Quarter as I was going that way anyway, and he had some serious partying to do (it’s not very far, maybe three minutes’ walk from where we were). No problem with that. We got talking about politics and what I do for a living, no red flags apart from he wanted to know about my living arrangements in a little too much detail. He decides he will also go to Tesco’s as he needs some food. So far, so normal. But… then he sort of follows me when I’m looking for bread and milk, and begins a deep philosophical discussion about bread choices. After some consideration, I come to the conclusion that seeded batch will meet my carbohydrate needs. He approves, and then asks if he can come back to mine for toast and a glass of milk. I sort of nervously half-laugh, and then realise he’s serious when he remonstrates with me that he played a vital role in my selection of baked goods, and this somehow entitles him to my toaster and, ahem, hospitality. It got rather creepy and uncomfortable, as he’d set this up just right and clearly expected me to cave, but honestly, I don’t take drunken strangers home with me as a habit, and I prefer a more thoughtful courtship than this. In spite of all my ‘no, thank you’s, he tries the age-old persuasion technique of asking me ten different variants of “oh go on” / “why not?” and then says “ok, I’m not going to push it” (you already have, mate) and then hotfoots it off into the night… I honestly don’t think he saw the problem with propositioning a random person in the bakery aisle.

So that was how to not just say hello. Here is the alternative, for comparison:

Just Saying Hello

I was on my way to work in the morning, and I passed by a building site. There was a labourer sat at the gate, reading the newspaper. He looks up as I walk past, and says “Good Morning”. I turn to face him, say “Good Morning” in return, and continue on my journey to the office. Nothing more comes of this.

And that’s it. It’s not difficult, right? No stalking, creeping, manipulating me, literally Just Saying Hello. We know the difference, thank you – if you need to check that we’re telling the truth then perhaps you need to examine your own behaviour.

Meow! Controversial “debates” abound this week with the argument (mainly from radical feminists) that trans women can’t be “real” women because they experienced male privilege while growing up. First off, this is a complete non-argument; it’s like saying I can’t identify as disabled because I was healthy up until my teens, or because I had a brain tumour that others couldn’t see, that I experienced “able privilege”.

So you’re probably able to summarise my thoughts on the matter quite succinctly. I am: it’s utter bollocks. But let’s delve a little deeper to highlight some of the errors, contradictions and downright fantasies that make up this viewpoint.

The male privilege argument

This is the most controversial of all the points, for me, because there is a grain of truth behind it. We don’t choose to have privilege in any given situation. It is as much about people’s perceptions of an individual as it is about the actual characteristic that is said to be responsible for the advantage. So while a trans woman may have experienced terrible suffering and marginalisation as a child due to their gender identity, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t perceived as male, and therefore treated like a boy (and this will have added to their problems).

Privilege doesn’t cancel itself out

There isn’t a scorecard of oppression that we use to decide who gets the most points in any given situation. Intersectionality is a wonderful frame to consider complex relationships between different axes of privilege. And it’s for that reason that it’s not a totting-up exercise. A trans woman who was once considered male doesn’t lose the trauma and dysphoria of her earlier years due to the concept of male privilege. It’s not Top Trumps, people!

There is no universal standard of womanliness

You’ve often heard it said that there’s more variation within a population than between populations. And it’s true in this case! There’s so much variability in people’s experiences of childhood, that I couldn’t tell you what a typical childhood even is, let alone a typical “socialised female” childhood. If we’re going to say that trans women never had the experience of growing up as a girl, we’re going to have to exclude a lot of “real” girls from that as well.

Trans women are women

There are so many different facets of what it means to be a woman. we can pick and choose the criteria in whatever way we like, but they will never give a complete picture, and every single definition we choose is going to unjustly exclude somebody. Perhaps the problem is that we are looking for too rigid a characterisation, like a Girls Only club with secret passwords and a ladies-only treehouse. I feel that this is one of the failures of trans-exclusionary arguments: that because historically women have been oppressed as a class, we must protect the definition of “woman”. But what then? We have our perfect definition that can never be challenged, and this is going to help us to fight the patriarchy… how? Isn’t it better to expand the definition of “woman” to reflect the entire female experience and to increase the number of allies?

Privilege works both ways

Transgender people are disadvantaged on just about every scale you can think of. More likely to be unemployed, more likely to be the victim of crime, more likely to attempt suicide, more likely to live in poverty, more likely to experience direct and indirect discrimination, etc, etc. I could sit here listing these all night. It makes the male privilege argument rather redundant when you consider the unending torrent of disadvantage many trans people have to wade through every single day of their lives. And let’s not forget that those making the trans-exclusionary argument are almost always white, middle-class and wealthy. Have they checked their privilege recently?

Men aren’t the problem, either

This “debate” inevitably ends up with someone claiming that trans women are men. Well, that ain’t so, and even if it was, it’s a fallacious route to head down. While it is true that the majority of gendered violence is perpetuated by men, it is by a minority of men. We hear so much about them because they create a toxic culture that often goes unchallenged and causes numerous disadvantages for women. There are feminists who believe that all men are an immediate threat, and they are wrong. There are plenty of things that we are all guilty of, like bias, stereotyping and sexist language, but they aren’t the same as rape and murder. This is a bit like comparing all the “arguments” against Islamic doctrine to terrorism – it’s just nonsense. Oh yeah, one more thing. I’ll say it again: trans women are not men.

What about the (trans) men?

Oh, look, a huge f*cking elephant in the room. Well, I suppose we’d better address it. Trans-exclusionary arguments always, without fail, ignore not only the issues that trans men face, but that they exist at all*. There’s no moral panic over where trans men go to do their business; it’s almost like it’s not really about bathrooms. Shouldn’t we be going after these chaps with our pitchforks for betraying the sisterhood? No? Why not? Is it like Queen Victoria refusing to believe that lesbianism existed because she couldn’t imagine it? How simple-minded the anti-trans brigade must be.

It’s not a zero-sum-game

I’m sure that if you’ve read this far, you don’t need this explaining to you, but here it is anyway: there’s not a finite amount of rights to go round. In protecting the rights of one group, we don’t need to take rights away from someone else in case we run out of human decency. There’s enough to go round for everyone. And if we then come back to the idea that women are suffering because our society chooses to treat transgender people with dignity and respect, I’d really like to see some evidence to support that claim. It’s ok, take as long as you need – the last 40 years or so haven’t yielded anything, so I’m in no rush.

So what am I allowed to debate then?

Well, you’ll have you consult your self-awareness guide for that one. I’m not going to tell you what to think. But I am going to tell you that you should think. We can criticise gender roles, gender-based violence and discrimination, while still supporting equal rights for transgender people. Indeed, many transgender people will have views on those topics, and they are worth listening to. It’s not an either/or problem. Yes, men in general start off from a more advantageous position than women in almost every area of life. But that’s not a Get Out Of Jail Free card that we can whip out every time a new feminist topic comes up. We didn’t just do feminism up until the 1970s and then it was job done. The world is changing and it’s not going to wait for us. Feminism isn’t simple, and nor should it be.

*NOTE: while trans men get conveniently hushed out of the room, some trans-exclusionary folk do have a problem with non-binary identities. I’m not completely sure what their “academic” argument is, but it quite often descends into insults like “trans-trender”, and it’s really ugly. I can only assume that they feel threatened by AMAB (assigned male at birth) people adopting identities that are more feminine, but at the end of the day it comes across as a dogmatic belief rather than anything backed up by evidence or a solid argument.

BULLSHIT. That’s right, if it ain’t inclusive, then it ain’t equal. Intersectional feminism strives for equality for all genders, recognising that while gender oppression is a huge factor in an unequal society, it is also more complicated than that alone. There are numerous other influences that are oppressive in their own way, or that combine with gender discrimination to create an even worse problem. For example, a black woman is more likely to experience both racism and sexism, whereas a white woman is likely to only experience sexism, and a different expression of it. Disabled and transgender women are at a similar junction – there are feminist issues specific to minority women that arise because of the traits that make them a minority. It’s really not that difficult to understand, unless you’ve got your head stuck in the 1970s.

And you’d think, what with them being a switched-on feminist publication, that this would be easy-peasy for Jezebel (they’re often criticised, but the conversations they generate are usually important ones). But they have really let themselves down today:

The headline reads “The FBI, Which Still Won’t Address Online Threats Against Women, Arrested Someone For Tweeting a GIF at a Male Journalist”. This is complete intellectual dishonesty. That headline, while technically true, doesn’t talk about what actually happened. The GIF was sent to the recipient, Kurt Eichenwald, specifically because the sender knew he has photosensitive epilepsy, and with the intention of causing him to experience a seizure. Besides that, it’s possible for the FBI to concentrate on more than one problem at a time – they are a national government-backed organisation with plentiful resources.

This was investigated and prosecuted because there was enough evidence to bring a case, and because this crime crossed the line from threat to assault. There is an issue of female journalists (and, generally, females) suffering disproportionate and gendered harassment online, and it needs to be taken seriously and investigated. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prosecute other crimes, and arguably this case works towards creating a safer online environment for women anyway, because there is now precedent for dealing with online abuse.

And then, back to the bullshit. The article (click if you dare) and its headline are worded in such a way as to take a story about an individual, trivialise the main issue, turn it around and make it about women. This is the exact derailing tactic used by the “what-about-the-men” trolls, and we shouldn’t be giving sexist knobheads any ammunition by behaving like sexist jerks ourselves. Not to mention the intersectionality fail. Mr Eichenwald was targeted for his disability (although it’s probably no coincidence that the person who did this had the Twitter handle @jew_goldstein). It had nothing to do with his gender, until Jezebel decided to make it so by throwing the disabled under the bus. Thanks a bunch, Jezebel.

Today was a Throwback Friday! Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? This week, we’re going back to the 1970s, so get your tank tops and platform heels ready! Fujifilm, somewhat unbelievably, ran a press conference with a product demo that included a semi-naked female body as a prop for “testing the camera’s performance on skin tone”. Yeah right, pull the other one. It was a thinly-veiled excuse to cover up that they brought out a topless model to titillate the all-male audience.

Fortunately, one of them spoke out. Everyone listened to him because, well, he’s a man. Women have been complaining about this sort of thing for decades, but are routinely mocked and silenced.

The Metro’s article on this is surprisingly good (usually The Metro’s only any good if the train toilet’s run out of bog roll on the morning commute) – you can read it by clicking here.

My thoughts on this aren’t as stereotypically righteous as you might imagine. While I do find it offensive that this was deemed an appropriate marketing technique in 2017, I’m actually really embarrassed for Fujifilm. Like, seriously, did no-one tell them it’s 2017?

When I first started working in engineering; design offices and site cabins had nude calendars everywhere, hardcore pornography was sent round the office by email, and corporate jollies involving strip clubs were commonplace (this was in the early 2000s). There was very much an atmosphere of it being a “men’s space”. I did not dare question this set-up, as those in charge were the same ones who were responsible for my progression and pay-packet. Worse than that, I was frequently underestimated and was the brunt of every “dumb woman” or “feminazi” joke going. If Bernard Manning had walked in one day, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

As more and more women enter professions that are traditionally male-dominated, there is a transition period where nasty behaviours get exposed and weeded out. The first women through the doors have to bear the brunt of the sexism and complaints that they’re ruining everything, and it’s Political Correctness Gone Mad or Feminism Going Too Far. There’s an element of this still in motoring and gaming (please, please, please, no-one mention GamerGate).

While I find it really childish that groups of grown men left to their own devices are only comfortable working in a playground environment, I also find it fascinating. Why does this happen almost universally in male-dominated circles? Given that I know a ton of men who aren’t rampant sexists, but who also wouldn’t complain about it either, here’s what I think is going on:

A few macho types at the top of the food chain proudly display their masculinity by creating an atmosphere in which overt manliness is the norm. No-one is going to question it, as to be seen doing so would make one “less manly” (oh nooooooooooooooooo!). And in not questioning it, all of the men get to enjoy the benefits: loads of pictures of boobs, and none of those pesky women hanging around telling them they can’t make poo jokes all day. Outside of this environment, these men (including the ringleaders, most of the time) behave like civilised human beings – they wouldn’t want anyone behaving around their mothers or wives like that, right? Trouble is, it perpetuates the problem, and makes it hard for women to succeed in these fields. As well as being made to feel uncomfortable, it’s a lot easier to dismiss and ignore those that you openly hold in contempt.

This isn’t a confidence-boosting, self-help load of waffle. This is actually about something totally wrong-headed I heard from an acquaintance with, uh, clearly different aspirations to me.

More than a difference of opinion, this is about some seriously harmful and life-limiting stereotypes that are still with us even in the 21st Century. Worryingly, this is just one occasion of many that I’ve heard a variation on this theme, and there seem to be social penalties for those who don’t comply.

So I was on my way to the water cooler, when I happened upon two colleagues discussing marriage (not to each other, but I have no problems with that – more in a future post). These two individuals were a younger woman (late 20s-ish), and an older gentleman, with, ahem, traditional views. The younger woman was engaged, but not looking to get married and have children just yet. You might not agree with that attitude (it doesn’t entirely align with my thoughts), but that’s what she wants, and what she’s getting in her present relationship. Good for her.

And literally everything that was said after this point was a cringe-inducing train wreck of a conversation. So the older chap suggests that:

She should hurry up and get married because all men are commitment-phobes (I will address the myriad contentions I have with this idea below, but for now let’s just celebrate that at least this guy is an equal-opportunities sexist);

[I feel it necessary to point out here that these were his actual words, because this is just such a bizarre phrase to actually come out of someone’s mouth] “A person hasn’t achieved anything in life until they’ve had children” (he literally said this, and again, detailed analysis of the blindingly obvious to follow below).

And then he starts to engage me in the conversation. Now there are some people that I work with that I can be my passionate, political and skeptical self with. This guy is not one of them. But seriously, I’m not going to keep my mouth shut about this.

[here I need to point out that for numerous reasons I do not talk about my children at work. This guy knows it’s something I consider inappropriate, but decorum certainly isn’t his strong suit]

SCIENCE LADY: “It’s complicated. I don’t like to talk about it.”

WEIRD BLOKE: “But you know, you’ve fulfilled your purpose in life.”

SCIENCE LADY: “I have lots of things to live for, and not everyone wants to be a parent. Many people choose not to, or are unable to have kids. And they provide a valuable role as caretakers. If everyone is focused on nurturing children at the expense of everything else, how can we develop as a society?”

[older gentleman looks aghast]

WEIRD BLOKE: “I don’t know what you mean.”

SCIENCE LADY: “We need other people to perform tasks that benefit the community, so that the whole environment provides suitable conditions for children to flourish. And for some people, that’s a role they’re better suited to than parenthood.”

WEIRD BLOKE: “Oh, well I think you’re wrong.”

[awkward silence]

So that was depressing. It’s amazing what things you learn about the beliefs of others when they let their guard down. Anyway, time for some Grade-A ranting:

So men are all commitment-phobic? Well, that’s not true, although men may generally have different requirements for wishing to settle down that don’t match those of many women, thereby creating this impression. I also think it’s a lot to do with maturity, and the notion that other things in a man’s life need to be sorted before he allows himself to be vulnerable. And the unrealistic ideals society has about relationships (oooh, another post on this, too!).

It doesn’t really say good things about him, given that he’s saying how fickle his own gender is. Doesn’t matter if he’s repeating society’s lie, it’s still bullshit.

This young woman is clearly happy in her relationship choice, and she doesn’t need some weird bloke telling her that she should do it differently.

If someone is living with a person, and they’re engaged to be married, there is a certain amount of commitment inherent in that situation.

While I have “passed on my genetic material” (could we make it sound any more clinical?), I have many ambitions, dreams, and goals. I want to be successful, to be remembered as a contributor to society, to enhance the lives of others who aren’t necessarily blood relatives.

Unfortunately, having children does pose some restrictions on one’s life, especially in a society that still leaves most of the child-rearing burden on one parent. And many people don’t like kids, don’t want the responsibility, and just want something else from life. They don’t need anyone’s approval or opinions on whether their lifestyle is valid.

Some people are unable to have children, for a huge variety of reasons. Some of them are OK with that; many of them aren’t. Attaching moral value to a distressing situation that cannot be resolved is cruel and simplistic.

The world has 7 billion inhabitants and rising at the time of writing this. Numerous studies have demonstrated that there are too many of us, consuming resources at too great a pace, for the planet to be able to support us. Of course many people will want to have children of their own, but forcing people down this route is slowly killing us all (have a great day, but don’t forget the ever-looming reminder of your own mortality!).

This statement shows that this individual views the child-free as less worthy. You may think, “oh, well that’s just one individual’s bigoted opinion”, but there is evidence that those who choose to stay single and/or childless are seen as less mature, stable, and with lower status (Career-wise, not having children penalises men, and having children disadvantages women. Talk about a zero-sum game.).

Women in particular are the recipients of an inordinate amount of questioning regarding the status of their reproductive organs. Not only is this intrusive and downright inappropriate, the sexist expectation that all women are incubators-in-waiting needs to be sent back to the 1800s.

Always one to look out for reasons to demonstrate why men need feminism too (because apparently gender equality is only worth men’s time if you can link it to direct personal benefits ::eye roll:: ), I found an interesting paper on attitudes towards masculinity online. I wanted to read it because I’d seen some criticism of it on Twitter (although it appears that those making the comments hadn’t actually read the paper, because it addresses all of their questions).

Their complaint seems to be that the report discusses sexist stereotypes affecting men – but that’s the whole point! The enormous sample of data, collected over a very long study period, demonstrated that sexist attitudes towards men are all over the place. The authors aren’t saying that they agree with the data! And it’s an element of our patriarchal society that isn’t talked about nearly enough.

The paper is written from a feminist perspective, but concentrates on the experiences and perceptions of men. The researchers looked solely at Twitter correspondence generated between August 2012 and July 2016, in only the UK and the US. It is useful to see how sexist stereotypes affect all genders, and could help men to challenge their own behaviour – as perpetuating myths about masculinity is harming those who do it as well! [an aside: the paper notes that the majority of the perpetrators of misogynistic abuse were female – looks like we’re all responsible for the proliferation or reduction of toxic attitudes about gender]

I’m impressed at the volume of data that was amassed and analysed in this work, and that any biases are those inherent in the study cohort – the researchers did not rely on a self-reporting survey, but actual retrospective Tweets over a long time period. I did have concerns about the research being conducted by a marketing company – but given that the work is about determining attitudes of potential consumers, they could well be the right people for the job. Their clients include Unilever, Cisco, Whirlpool, British Airways, Heineken, Walmart and Dell – and they’re not the sort of companies to tolerate duff sales advice.

The concepts of masculinity defined in the study came from the data gathered from the 19 million Tweets that were scanned over a period of four years – so it’s not finding facts to fit the theory; the work was done by the data. The researchers looked at Tweets that were positive, negative, or neutral contributions to the discussion, and broke them down into categories such as profession, activity, and preferences. So the tweets aren’t being looked at in isolation: context is everything, and some tweets were studied in terms of the responses and conversation threads in which they occurred, and whether the Tweet was intended as an insult, or discussion of the issues.

I’ll not give too much away, as the paper is concise and easy to follow. But one thing that I will add: the research was commissioned by an anti-bullying charity to see how we can improve things for boys and young men, and support those who are often dismissed or forgotten. And that’s something we should all strive for.

Aside from the intro, executive summary, and conclusions, the paper is broken down into the following sections:

What is masculinity?

How do people feel about masculinity?

Key issues surrounding masculinity constructs

Forming the future of masculinity

Misogyny

It’s an enlightening read. While it does challenge some perceptions, it depressingly reveals some less upstanding attitudes; including homophobia, intolerance of non-conformity, misogyny, violence, toxic and fragile masculinity, and more stereotypes than you can shake a stick at (how many exactly is that? Is there a limited amount of possible stick-waving? Maybe your arms get tired or something).

Of course there is hope – the authors recognise that general discussions about masculinity and misogyny increased in number during the final 6 months of the study. And I’m having more conversations of this nature with my peer group. It’s an interesting and relevant part of human interaction that deserves some of our time. And once we’ve identified a problem, we can make a start on putting it right. And we all must: it’s not masculinity that’s broken, it’s society.

I’d hoped to get writing my “What about the men?” series a lot sooner than this, but I figured that International Men’s Day would be a suitable place to start. Or as I like to call it, “International where-are-all-the-dudes-who-were-asking-about-international-men’s-day-on-international-women’s-day Day”.

It’s the same every International Women’s Day (which is 8th March) – all the Neanderthals congregate on Twitter to lament the inherent sexism in having a day for a group that still faces oppression in 2016. The poor dears, something in the public realm that’s not all about them for a change. Clearly a feminist conspiracy to overthrow the patriarchy (which is, of course, totally amazeballs and not disadvantageous to humans of all genders At All). If only there was a special day just for them, where we could focus on men’s issues (which are real and sometimes distinct from women’s). Well, there is – and it’s today:NOVEMBER 19TH

The worst thing about the “but-when-is-international-mens’-day” debacle is that it trivialises actual problems specific to people of all genders. In the case of women, concerns that IWD is meant to address are dismissed and minimised; and the problems men face (that IMD is meant to highlight) are ignored because the overwhelming number of men talking about IMD are only doing so to troll feminists. There are some genuine problems affecting men that society needs to take responsibility for, including: the high rate of male suicide, autonomy issues related to circumcision, male rape, intimate partner violence, employment discrimination, conditions in prison, illnesses specific to male bodies, cultural expectations of masculinity, etc, etc.

These are all real concerns that IMD is designed to raise the profile of, and yet I have not seen a single IMD in which these issues were raised, discussed, and challenged. There are thousands of men who have been dealt a crappy hand in the game of life. They are let down by the privileged few refusing to accept anyone else’s struggle, and assuming that every criticism of sexist behaviour is an accusation levelled directly at them.

There is also the inevitable whataboutery that occurs when someone brings up an issue that disproportionately affects women. The pattern goes like this:

All this leads to is the notion that women’s problems don’t matter, and men’s problems don’t exist – a view promoted by men and women (it’s not just the extremes of the gender politics spectrum – like MRAs and Radical Feminists – that are doing this, it’s ordinary men and women too). And it leads to IWD becoming a circus, and IMD becoming a joke.

This is bad enough in itself, but I’ve been carrying out a little experiment – unconsciously at first, but when I noticed a pattern, I couldn’t resist seeing what would happen if I pushed some more of the Male Identity Buttons. It’s nowhere near as dastardly as it sounds (no men were harmed in the making of this blog post); all I did was to post and retweet articles that talk about gender inequality to the detriment of men, as well as those I post on inequalities that particularly affect women (and other oppressed groups or minorities – but there is nowhere near the volume of pushback received if I were to post about racism, say. Unless it’s about #BlackLivesMatter; white people are losing their shit over that).

Predictably, there were the same old voices commenting on articles with a feminist perspective, diverting the conversation towards men. And something else happened too. I’d been running my “experiment” for over a year, and so was able to gather data on the type of comments made on articles from a men’s equality angle. Let’s take a look at how many times people leapt into the comments thread to say that “women have problems too / not all women / what about men being sexist towards men / what about the struggles of disadvantaged male minorities / well, I don’t think men’s problems are real / men are forever making false accusations against women / what about, what about, what about…”

Oh.

There is a problem.

You see, the comments on articles about men’s issues didn’t follow the same pattern as those on the women’s issues posts. This is because there were no comments at all. A big, fat zero. Some people did “like/react” to these posts, but not any of the usual detractors. Additionally no-one commented with anything positive to say, but it’s difficult to say anything about the nature of comments that didn’t happen.

Which leads me to conclude that the “what about the men”-ers, and the “not all men”-ers, don’t actually care about gender equality for anyone. They just want an excuse to put women in their place and retain their position at the top of the social hierarchy. But you know what? International Men’s Day isn’t about women (that’s 8th March – yet no-one asks Richard Herring about that), although it is about how men can benefit both from feminism and from society recognising that there are some gender inequalities skewed in the other direction – and just like female oppression, male oppression harms us all.

Here is a selection of some of the male-issue-oriented articles and other findings that I posted and tweeted about:

They’re all valid and troubling problems that society needs to overcome. And yet we never see “Men’s Rights” types campaigning on these issues. Remember that when you mock the idea of gender inequality, or stay quiet on men’s issues.

As a child, I was brought up as a boy. I’d be encouraged to do “boy stuff”, and I naturally gravitated towards stereotypically male interests, behaviours and clothing. And my parents encouraged it. Throughout my school and university career, I had always felt a stronger affinity with males than females, and I never really got along with girls. It’s hard to describe in terms that don’t come across as essentialist or reductive, but growing up I felt that I was “more like” the boys than the girls. I felt awkward in female company, and hated it when teachers and other parents would try to funnel me into “girly” activities. Even now, I still feel this way, which sure is an education in the complexity of gender (Clue: it’s not a binary!).

But because it’s easier to explain in terms of what society deems “male” things, and “female” things, it can come across as sounding quite misogynistic. I once was talking with a feminist friend about interactions with women (this started off as a discussion about women who are sexist towards other women), and they got quite angry about my assertion that I preferred male company. Of course, you can be interested in whatever the hell you like. You can work on a building site, and go home to watch Sex and the City and strut around in high heels – whatever gender you are. Men and women can still be men and women whether they like things traditionally associated with their gender or not. Many butch women are adamant that they are women, many “girly” girls may feel masculine on the inside.

But I do wonder about the way I see the world and the way I was socialised. As I said above, I was raised like a boy, and it suited me just fine. My brother got a bit of a rough deal, as he was actually very effeminate – but my parents were having none of it, as they didn’t want him to grow up to be a “sissy”. So I was brought up in quite a macho environment, but my dad has a real bugbear about people who break gender rules. Only men should do “men’s jobs”, and women should stay at home with the kids. Which does make me wonder quite how he sees me. Obviously he is pleased that I got a good education, and a decent job… but I’m an engineer. In conversation, it regularly comes up that “men should be men” and “women should be women”, while I’m sat there with my metaphorical site hat on. It’s almost as if “women are crap, but you’re different”, or “how can I be racist when I have a black friend?”. And I feel uneasy because although I don’t like that attitude, I have benefitted from it. And I have such a strong sense of self that if things were to change for me, I’d feel like I had lost something precious.

It’s great that the world is changing to be more inclusive and diverse. That’s the way to do it, to raise standards of the disadvantaged while those at the top of the food chain stay still. If only we could all buy into it without having our fragile identities threatened, eh?

Ages ago (well, here, actually), I posted about successful women who reject feminism because they think they don’t need it any more. Social changes have helped them to get to where they are, and they become blind to the problems that other women encounter. They buy in to the idea of a true meritocracy, where we are 100% responsible for our own successes and failures, and that your background, education, connections, wealth, etc. have nothing to do with it.

I’ve been in this situation myself, I grew up in a family that I hesitate to even call working-class (because they didn’t actually work), I left the dead-end town I grew up in, and went to University (against my parents wishes). I now have a great job, I’m comfortably well-off, and my life is completely different (and better) to what I would have had if I’d followed in my family’s footsteps. It feels like everything I’ve done, I did for myself. But that’s not quite true. I was very lucky to have received such a good education (my teachers were way better role models than my parents), and the drive to get more people attending Uni from lower social classes meant that my study was subsidised. I wouldn’t have been able to access the same opportunities if steps hadn’t been made in the name of equality.

Which brings me back to one example of rampant internalised misogyny, so blatant it sounds like I must have made it up. But no. This was no satire or Poe, these were genuine actual successful women, lording it over the rest of us, as follows:

I was invited to attend a Women in Engineering event (it wasn’t run by one of the big engineering institutions, and I’m not telling you which one it is anyway, for self-preservation reasons), and I expected it to be fairly similar to most other evening do’s I attend professionally: a talk, networking, fancy canapés. Well, it did have those three things, but some extra bonus items too!

A presentation on how women can become more successful and ascend the career ladder more easily, with literally no advice on answering that question. It did, however, have plenty of snarky in-jokes about how men get all uppity if women start promoting themselves or demand recognition.

The networking post-presentation was part-good, part-bad. There were some people there who were involved with Engineers Without Borders (like Medecins Sans Frontiers, but with bricks and steel beams), who talked about their work overseas, and how it can be a good way to advance your career (Yes! Solid, specific and useful career advice! At last!). Those individuals were all women under 30, and they saw two important challenges that they could overcome with their projects:

1. There are places around the world that not only need investment and innovation, but they are also full of opportunities on a personal, industrial and political level;
2. Women and young people are under-represented in our sector, and they have found a niche to get around this problem.

Good work guys! This was definitely the most inspiring part of the evening (excluding the free wine). And then there were some other people, at director-level, who basically talked like a bunch of old, white men straight out of the 70’s. When I spoke about feeling limited and underestimated, they said that this was impossible, because they’d never experienced it. If we spoke about the problem of women being viewed as aggressive when they are assertive, that was a myth too, because they’d been doing fine for the last 30-odd years. Us silly girls must be over-sensitive or something.

And all of this hurts, not just me, but all of us. Because sexism and other prejudices and biases are very real. While my school education was genderless, I encountered a few strange attitudes when I arrived at university. Generally my tutors were 100% normal human beings with no discernible biases, but one in particular used to “compliment” me (repeatedly) for being a woman studying the subject. Yes, I was probably a bit of a novelty (er, twenty years previously, even then), but it wasn’t the only thing that defined me.

In the workplace it got even weirder, like some of my colleagues had been brought up in another epoch or something. Things have come a l-o-n-g way over my short time in the industry (15 years). And this is in part due to huge effort by the government, engineering institutions, and individual firms, to attract a more diverse workforce into the profession.

When we say that we’ve outgrown the support systems, or that they are no longer important because some individuals have achieved success against the odds, we are dismissing the needs of those who aren’t as fortunate as us. Because there are still real barriers in the way, for all sorts of reasons. Empathy is important here, because in order to effect social change, you have to understand things from another’s perspective, and acknowledge that not everyone achieves success purely on merit.

Is it a protective mechanism? Like if we admit that the system helped us to get over hurdles, we’ll reveal that we didn’t do it all by ourselves and are some sort of fraud? We need to be more honest about this, and not begrudge those who have been luckier in life, but accept and understand that their life took a different path to that of many others. And that it’s ok to make up for it in other respects if you started off with less. And that it’s our duty to support and advance each other for the success of humanity.

As an aside, the next event I was invited to by this group was a shoe-shopping trip. No, I’m not making that up. No matter how much I love shoes, I somehow don’t think I would have fitted in. I declined their invitation.

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